This is my first post here at Gearslutz and I hope there is somebody that can give me a few pointers about ADR.

I recorded an indie film in Brooklyn in August, the film is pretty much complete except I have to do the ADR for about 3 scenes. Now I did have experience sitting in on ADR sessions but actually editing it and putting in together, I did not. Now I did complete this scene I did for ADR because the scene took place on 34th street and the dialog was useless. When it all came out, it was HORRIBLE. YIKES! I didn't realize it because I was aiding the audio from other takes and adding SFX, ect.

Basically what I did was record the talent's lines about 3-4 times on my Pro Tools MBOX, picked the best take and matched them up to the lips as best I could using time compression and EQ. Is there something that I am doing wrong? I think, Im not sure but I didn't really do sound design for the whole scene perfectly, what I did was take a city ambience background and just looped it. That's what I'm thinking that I did wrong. I have to do that over and I have to do ADR for some subway scenes.

But as a general pointer for ADR... mic selection and mic position, mic position, mic position... Try to get the ADR to sound AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE to the production dialogue when recording it. Don't rely on EQ and effects to get it to match.

As for BG sounds... look for any "wild" recordings of the street when they were filming. Usually a good production sound person will try to record some wild tracks of the environment for use later. If not, you are gonna have to try and find stuff from a library that works.

No gear is going to make up for a poor performance by the actor. This goes for both ADR & on-screen performance..

We are not magic, even though we often sell ourselves like we are. heh If you surround yourself with quality people & projects you will in-turn look good. If you surround yourself with posers & amateurs, you will look like an amateur. This business is all about collaboration. I personally cannot compensate for a bad producer/editor/actor/etc.... [I don't know if this was the situation that you were/are in... I just felt like this needed to be said ]

My problem is I only get an hour for 20 - 30 - even 40 lines. There is simply no time to strike different positions when a client has that kind of expectation / budget.

Ahhh. Underbooking. I usually just get a good starting position for the boom and then the engineer will ask them to take a half step forwards or backwards depending on the tone required. Nicely, of course.

You can download a fully functional 30 day demo of Vocalign Project or Vocalign Pro from Syncro Arts. But if you can afford it, buy it. I've seen it work miracles in skilled hands. In unskilled hands, I've seen it slaughter great performances. Like most tools, the better the perfomance, the better it works.

If the list was ordered by importance, I would probably put Placement (Mic) at the top.

My problem is I only get an hour for 20 - 30 - even 40 lines. There is simply no time to strike different positions when a client has that kind of expectation / budget.

Hi Nathan, I know exactly the kinds of situations you are talking about, my only suggestion is to place multiple mics and choose later. A lav and two booms with different positions maybe. Sometimes its tricky to keep the actor positioned properly, you can try and plant them in front of a close mic and have your other mics positioned well.

Haha, PLEASE do, Oz! The more that one gets passed around, the better! There are many good 't-shirt slogans' that come from working on "not the most 'unproblematic' shows", ya know?

Just trying to impart the understanding for a new student production shooting with RED cam (nice...student prod on RED); trying to make them aware of how important it is to name files properly when loading into their edit system because we got scru-uuuu'd royally on a big project that we had to throw 3 people at for a week straight to try to make sense of the file names/EDLs/OMFs, all of which seemed to be all different. Frame rates, file names, what a mess. I finally figured out a way to edit the EDLs to get 'most of' the takes we needed from the original sound rolls.

Hello Guys,
I am new to this site & please forgive me if I post on wrong page.

Need help to build Post-Production facility .

Hello ,
I have a dream to build a post-production facility . Please help to pick the right equipment again we well cater only low budget regional films in northern india. I don't know much about audio for film post-production line. My self Strictly video or film guy. Please send much info you can about what should I get or not to get far as equipment. Open for your honest advice & suggestion. Thanks you very much . Happy New Year in advance .......

To the OP: mic placement issues can be addressed fairly convincingly with the new Unveil plugin, and/or careful use of proper reverb (which is a real science, btw). I've also found that a fingerprint EQ plugin, such as Bias' Repli-Q works wonders. With it you can take a snapshot of a "good" line of dialog's frequency spectrum and then apply it to an ADR line to impart some of the same vibe. Unfortunately, Bias is now out of business, and I'm not sure what other options exist for that. Anybody?

I have a related question that I'd rather stick in here then start another thread.

I'm working on a low-budget indie feautre length and I've just finished doing the ADR editing. And I'm looking for some tips to match the tone of the orginal dialog. Really just need help with the dialog mix.

I've got great performances from all the actors, and the pitch/inflections are great. I've pretty much followed Purcell's book to the letter (which has been amazing btw), but where it falls short is when you need to match the tone of the scene.

I know that I'll have to do some room tone mixing in there to fill the gap, but I tracked ADR in a farly dead-sounding room.

What do people do in this case?
Audio-suite reverb plugs and tweak for a long time to get the space sounding close enough, and cover it up with room-tone mix?

I don't have any post-specific plugs in my arsenal, but would voc align help with tonality? (The timing is already edited well)
Would unveil work for this even though the room I tracked ADR in wont sound like outdoors or the location rooms?

I have loads of experince in music mixing, but I'm not making any money so it would mean a lot if someone could convince me on a certain plug or workflow to get past this.

I have a related question that I'd rather stick in here then start another thread.

I'm working on a low-budget indie feautre length and I've just finished doing the ADR editing. And I'm looking for some tips to match the tone of the orginal dialog. Really just need help with the dialog mix.

I've got great performances from all the actors, and the pitch/inflections are great. I've pretty much followed Purcell's book to the letter (which has been amazing btw), but where it falls short is when you need to match the tone of the scene.

I know that I'll have to do some room tone mixing in there to fill the gap, but I tracked ADR in a farly dead-sounding room.

What do people do in this case?
Audio-suite reverb plugs and tweak for a long time to get the space sounding close enough, and cover it up with room-tone mix?

I don't have any post-specific plugs in my arsenal, but would voc align help with tonality? (The timing is already edited well)
Would unveil work for this even though the room I tracked ADR in wont sound like outdoors or the location rooms?

I have loads of experince in music mixing, but I'm not making any money so it would mean a lot if someone could convince me on a certain plug or workflow to get past this.

Thanks a lot in advance!

You pretty much have it. If the performance matches, you are 90% of the way there. EQ and reverb to match, and lay in foley and bg's to replace what's missing. That's it. It should only take you a few years to get good at it.

That's a function of performance and budget. Often out of the hands of the audio team. The show I am currently working on gives me ADR that was recorded on the stars iPhones. How do you think it's going to match?

Hi Doctor or anyone else. I have hit a language barrier. Could you please elaborate on the term "pitch"? I believe it refers to project the voice so it is similar to the original performance? Nothing to do with musical pitch? What is the difference to the second "P" - Performance, then?
Thanks for clarifying